City Of Brass: Treasures Of The Genie

City of Brass – is dungeon crawl based on the same fairy tale “One Thousand and One Nights” from the Uppercut Games Studio, created by Irrational Games Australia ex-developers, at the time worked on such games as Fallout: Tactics, Freedom Force, Tribes: Vengeance, Bioshock, Bioshock 2 and the Bureau: XCOM Declassified.

City Of Brass

Although Irrational games Australia existed until 2015, many people were forced to leave the Studio after a failure undervalued gamers and press The Bureau: XCOM Declassified; actually then, in 2011, and was created Uppercut games. You probably know the work of this Studio, not bad mobile shooters Epoch, Epoch 2 or touching adventure game Submerged, which we wrote. City of Brass, the company’s new project for Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, has been in Steam Early access since September 2017 and finally realized in Star Wars Day (May 4, 2018).

The whole story of City of Brass fits in a short video shown at the start of the game, and surely you know it by “One Thousand and One Nights”. An old lamp, a Genie, a careless desire, and a sand-filled lost city full of treasures. Go and get them or die trying.

City of Brass is the classic dungeon crawl. Dungeons are randomly generated when you start a new game. Enemies, traps, rooms and corridors are placed randomly, causing sometimes completely crazy from the point of view of the architecture of the levels. Saving is not provided, you have to get to the last level in one sitting, it takes about an hour, or use the portal (it still needs to be opened during one of the passages), which will take you to the fourth, seventh or tenth level. All “floors” thirteen, every third you will Mini-Bosses, in the last three Mega-Bosses.

The task is simple – to get to the three large gins, prisoners in the depths of the Copper city and free him from the curse. All as usual, try not to fall into the trap (and here is all the classics like copies in the floor, cut in half, davilok, fiery pits, etc.), fighting with treasure guards, warriors, mages and monsters (statues moving until they are not looking, in the style of angels from Doctor Who – the best!), and, of course, scanning all the corners, collect the gold and other valuable trinkets. However, gold is not an end in itself, on each floor there are enough genies-traders who for a moderate amount will help you survive: will make up for health, will call for the help of an ally or just sell a useful thing in battle, new armor or weapons.

Your nameless character is armed with a whip, which allows you to stun enemies, pull lying far away treasures, objects or enemies, jump over obstacles and generally move quickly, using the rings available in the ceiling. Indispensable to any thief, I’m sorry, archaeologist, thing. In the other hand we have a scimmy, of course, in order to fend off the most annoying Museum guards. Both weapons can be replaced or found in treasure chests or bought from gins improved. Enough options, from the fire and slows the whip to rapier, repulsive clubs, etc.

By the way, the ability to attract and repel opponents is not as useless as it may seem at first glance: to throw the enemy into the abyss or to pull into a trap – a quick and easy way to get rid of obsessive care. And with the help of a whip, you can blow up explosive objects that occur in a Copper city in abundance. In addition, enemies can still throw all sorts of grenades, setting fire to their oil lamps, etc. Like the fight at the City Of Brass is not very intense, but fun, considering all available means of destruction of enemies, and very complex.

No experience our hero in the process of descent into the dungeon does not earn experience he gets only after the heroic death, and they, of course, will be a lot. Yes, City of Brass works on the good old principle of Live. Die. Repeat, erected in the absolute Edge of Tomorrow, that’s just because of the random generation of levels to learn the location of enemies here will not work.

Each new passage you can simplify or complicate it with a system of burden and blessing. Reduce the number of enemies or traps, remove the constantly ticking timer, forcing you to frantically look for a way out, strengthen yourself beautiful. Or strengthen enemies, add their revival, to include the eternal night and so on the one hand, it seems to increase the replay value, on the other hand, I think City Of Brass completely different problems.

The fact is that despite the dungeon generator, after the tenth attempt, you will realize that even chaotic levels can be repetitive and monotonous, because they are collected, though at random, but from the same boring parts. Collect gold figurines and cut a thousandth of a dead man is not so much fun. The game has no plot, but also any sane purpose. Try another hundred times to pass ten boring levels and kill the bad guys in the end-it’s not the goal, it’s the illusion of the goal, as well as the competition for the position in the ranking of friends.

Despite the variety of weapons and enemies, the gameplay of City of Brass is actually also quite monotonous. Know yourself stun, throw, Dodge and ruby. After a couple hours, all of this is done almost automatically. Yes, in the second half of the game to appear more interesting opponents, prabhadevi your kick, closing the huge shields, but, you should get hold of the whip abruptly, and they, too, will cease to be a problem. I particularly recommend the fiery whip.

City Of Brass is made on Unreal Engine 4, but don’t expect this game more realistic and high poly models. Slightly cartoonish graphics, simple model and stylized Oriental tales, UE4 here simply have nowhere to turn.

At first glance, City of Brass looks promising, and the players who tried the game in the Early access, put it in advance rather high marks. In fact this dungeon crawl turned out to be too monotonous, quickly bored and devoid of any purpose. Alas, the random generation of levels and the use of the “One Thousand and One Nights” style is not able to make this game better.